Coed y Gopa

Also within

Clwyd County

Habitats

Ancient woodland

Geology & landscape

Geological Feature: Cave / Cavern · Mining / Industrial: Quarry · Geological Period: Carboniferous · Rock Type: Carboniferous Limestone, Limestone

Landscape processes: Karst

Description

Description This site is notified for its species interest, a winter roost of lesser horseshoe bat Rhinolophus hipposideros. The site occupies a prominent Carboniferous Limestone hill south-west of and overlooking the town of Abergele at the north western end of the Vale of Clwyd. It is at an altitude of 45-185 metres above mean sea level with the summit surmounted by the Castell Cawr Hill Fort and flanked by severe slopes to north, west and east. To the north of the Hill Fort the site is traversed by the Ffos y Bleiddiad, a mineral vein that was exploited for lead ore from Roman times until the nineteenth century. There is a more recent and now disused stone quarry in the south-east corner. The many natural cave and underground mine workings provide ample opportunities for bat roosting areas. A plantation of beech Fagus sylvatica and Scots pine Pinus sylvestris clothes the hill with glades containing herb-rich calcicolous grassland at Copa'r Wylfa and on the rock outcrops and screes of the eastern and southern flanks. In the canopy are trees and shrubs such as ash Fraxinus excelsior, silver birch Betula pendula, spindle Euonymus europaeus, buckthorn Rhamnus cathartica, wild privet Ligustrum vulgare and yew Taxus baccata. These with woodland herbs that include stinking hellebore Helleborus foetidus and spurge-laurel Daphne laureola are indicators of the Ancient Woodland Site that once occupied the northern half of the plantation. The grassland contains herbs typical of thin limestone soils, for example, common rock-rose Helianthemum nummularium, salad burnet Poterium sanguisorba, wild thyme Thymus praecox ssp. arcticus, fairy flax Linum catharticum and early-purple orchid Orchis mascula. The combination of predominantly broad-leaved woodland, herb-rich grassland and wide rides that link these habitats provides an abundance of invertebrates and thus feeding areas for the bats. The site shelters Clwyd's second largest hibernaculum of lesser horseshoe bat. Annual counts are well in excess of 50 bats with a maximum of 130 recorded in December 1993. Two other species of bat are also present in small numbers, Natterer's bat Myotis nattereri and Daubentons bat M. daubentonii. Remarks: Castell Cawr Hill Fort is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Coed y Gopa is a Woodland Trust Reserve.

Species mentioned